Italy awarded 2020 World Champs, back to Imola motor racing track

Sam Bennett takes Giro stage victory at Imola two years ago. The Worlds will start and finish on the same motor racing track this year, but with 5,000 metres of climbing in the men's race and almost 2,500 metres for the women

The scene of one of the best wins we’ve seen from an Irish rider in recent years, the Imola motor racing track in Italy will host the start and finish of the re-planned World Road Championships later this year.

However, while Sam Bennett took a brilliant win on the track when the Giro visited there two years ago, the Carrick-on-Suir man probably won’t be in contention at the end of the Worlds as the men’s race will feature 5,000 metres of climbing.

The Worlds had been set to take place in Aigle-Martigny, Switzerland, on their
usual late September date. However, when the Swiss government extended its
restrictions on crowds and public gatherings due to Covid19, the championships
were stopped in their tracks.

Ironically, it is now Italy – which took the worst of the initial wave of Covid19 in Europe - that has stepped in to host the championships.

The rescheduled Worlds, for the elite categories only, will take place in the Emilia-Romagna region from September 24th to 27th, with elite men’s and women’s road races and TTs only.

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The men’s road race will be 259.2km with a total of nearly 5,000m of climbing, while the length of the women’s race will be 144km with 2,750m of climbing.

The circuit, at 28.8km, will be the same for the men - 9 laps - and women - 5 laps - and will include two difficult climbs; 3km in total with an average gradient of 10 per cent and sections reaching 14 per cent.

The TT, at 32km, will be flat and should suit Ryan Mullen (Trek-Segafredo). The road races may be ones for the likes of Alice Sharpe, Eddie Dunbar, Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche.

“The award of the UCI Road World Championships in Italy this year is of great symbolic value for the UCI: in a country that suffered enormously from the Covid-19 pandemic but was able to confront it effectively and with courage, the staging of our leading annual event will, in its own way, be a sign of a return to normal in a region where the health situation is now under control,” said UCI president David Lappartient.

“I am convinced that the 2020 UCI Road World Championships in Imola will allow us all, despite the difficult current situation, to witness a great sporting festival. I invite you all to follow this event in Italy, true cycling territory, on one of the most challenging circuits in the history of the UCI Road World Championships. I look forward to watching these races which promise to be magnificent.”

UCI Road World Championships